I, Francis
by Bagatelle
Summary: I’m standing right here, gunning down all the rest, and I’m loving life, for the most part. A series of vignettes told from Francis' POV. Slightly Francis/Zoey. Will be continued.
1. I, Francis

**I, Francis**

Warm-blooded creatures have a tendency to feel dominant over all other beings, and in particular, those descended from apes will use this instinct to justify their actions, no matter what ends they're trying to meet. Be their intentions good or evil, humans will pursue their desires, and they won't yield to those who oppose them. They're naturally vicious, vengeful, and power-hungry. Those who aren't strong enough to lead revolutions will follow them. Those not strong enough to follow will be sacrificed.

So fuck the ones too weak to crawl. What's that old shit that Darwin spewed? Survival of the fittest. I'm standing right here, gunning down all the rest, and I'm loving life, for the most part. See if I give a shit about the rest of these sore losers. I'll stomp their faces into the mud, and they can lick the shit off of my boots.

***

Bill lights up a cigarette in his corner of the safe room, and I watch him from mine, the light hitting his face for one red-yellow second and then dying down, glowing at the tip. He puts his lighter away. I can smell the tobacco burning from over here, and although I don't mind it, I know Louis does, but he's not gonna say shit about it. He likes Bill too much to ask him to put his stupid cigarette out. I do, too, to be perfectly honest. Like Bill too much to tell him not to smoke, I mean. If I didn't like him, I'd yell at him to put it out anyway, even though I don't care either way that he's smoking.

Zoey is curled up in her corner, facing the wall, and she taps the barrel of her pistol against the cement. I know it's her, even though I can't see shit in the darkness save Bill's cigarette, 'cause she's done that before, in other safe rooms we've stayed in. Even the ones we didn't have to sleep in. She'd tap that fucking pistol on the ground, or against the wall, and I'd look over at her and she'd be chewing her lip or just looking nervous as all hell. I have no sympathy for that kind of bullshit. Nervousness is what gets you, in situations like this, where your life is on the line. Bill understands that, and that's why I like him. He treats Zoey way too delicately, though. She isn't some glass sculpture, or something. She can shoot a gun. She's come further than most people.

She taps her gun again. I can tell she's trying to do it quietly so that she won't bother us, but I think she also knows how fucking pointless that is. We're all still awake, and it's obvious. Louis keeps rolling over and grunting to himself, and I don't think I've slept at all since the outbreak first went public. Bill's supposed to be keeping guard first. Setting up shifts had seemed like the best thing to do, at the time. Now it just seems pointless.

Zoey taps that fucking pistol again.

"Goddamnit, Zoey, would you cut that shit out?" I snarl, and my voice is loud in the darkness, startling her into silence. I hear Louis roll over again, then sit up in the corner next to mine. He's looking at me, probably. Whatever. Zoey is, too. She throws her pistol, and it hits the wall once before it smacks against the floor, clacking loudly and making me flinch when it skids into my knee.

"What's that, Francis?" she asks bitterly once it's come to a stop. I glare in her direction.

"You dumb bitch, the safety is off, isn't it?!"

"Of course it isn't...Christ, you think I'd throw it if it was?"

"This is real cute and all, but I'd shut up if I were either of you," Bill murmurs past his cigarette, smoke billowing out of his mouth like some kind of goddamn dragon. Zoey and I look over at him. "...Listen." All of us do. I don't hear anything, and I open my mouth to say so when he takes a deep drag on his cigarette and stares over at me, knowing. I shut my mouth and listen again. Faint scratching and snarling noises are coming from just past one of the bolted doors.

I hear Louis grab his pistol. "...Hunter?" he asks us all quietly.

"Sounds like it," Bill mutters. He, unlike the rest of us, is cradling an Uzi in his lap, pointed toward the door that the sounds are drifting through. We all know that there's no way in Hell that thing can get through the door, but a chill runs down all of our spines, anyway, I'm sure. Zoey's probably regretting throwing her gun, and I benevolently kick it back in her direction, my mind half-focused on the Hunter's growling, now. Zoey's too distracted to get pissed at me about her pistol. Good riddance. I don't want to fight with her right now, anyway.

Louis swallows audibly. It's gonna be a long night.

***

This is madness.

Even a couple of weeks ago, I could never have even dreamed something like this up. I turn my head and feel myself hack into my shoulder as I'm hauling ass through a cloud of smoke, the soles of my shoes barely touching the floor with each step. I rev the chainsaw I've been carrying for hours, my stiff muscles flexing as I pull it back and slam the thing forward with all of my strength, slicing through that thick, ropelike tongue and tumor-spotted face and forearms. Black blood and smoke gush up around me, and Louis pulls himself free from the Smoker's tongue, always surprisingly quick to get back on his feet and thank me breathlessly. He coughs into his forearm, and I yell over the roar of the chainsaw for him to follow me back down the hall, where Bill and Zoey are bracing themselves against a fresh wave of Infected.

I throw my weight into the saw and fuck shit up, grinding my teeth as the blade groans through bone and muscle. My clothes are soaked with blood by now, as are everyone else's, and it's just something you learn to ignore, along with the smell of dead and rotting carcasses, and the silence, and the ache of muscles underneath the adrenaline rushes.

Louis and Bill spray the oncoming wave with shots from their M16s, the sound echoing down the hall alongside the roar of the chainsaw, but nothing stands out like the deafening boom of Zoey's shotgun, and the subsequent explosions of blood and skull fragments that follow each pull of the trigger. I glance over at her while she's firing off rounds, and I catch a glimpse of her eyes: that madness that seems to follow Bill everywhere is glinting in the backs of her pupils, and it's fucking creepy, because I know what that means. She pauses to reload, and Louis covers her. The last of the rush hits us, and they drop like flies as they come around the corner, leaving us all panting and sweating and soaked with dark blood.

Bill does a headcount, like he always does, and he laughs hoarsely when he sees that we're all still alive, lowering his gun for one brief, valuable moment. Bill may be old and a little nuts, but he knows what he's doing, more so than the rest of us. "Good work, team," he chuckles, grinning at us all. Zoey points her shotgun at the floor, and I can hear in the way that she's breathing that she's shaken up. I don't look at her, 'cause I know I'll just get pissed if I do. God, she's sniffling. Louis claps a hand on her back awkwardly. God damn girls. Zoey's…what…nineteen? God _damn._ I forget how young she is, sometimes. I forget how young she is, when she's blasting bloodthirsty cannibals in the head with an auto-shottie.

I shift my weight and take a step back, disgusted by the pile of corpses at my feet. "I'm getting sick of this shit," I mutter, and Louis mumbles an agreement as Bill takes this rare moment to pull out a cigarette and light up. Zoey sobs once, then there's nothing, and she's pulling herself together like no woman I've ever seen before. I let myself look at her again once she's calmed down. Her hair is hanging in her blood-streaked face, and she looks like one of those crazy Amazonian warrior-women, trained to kill to keep her tribe safe from toddlerhood. Her eyes meet mine for all of three seconds, and I forget how young she is, again.

Bill whips his gun back around into his arms and growls for us to get going, again, his cigarette squeezed tight between his front teeth.

***

Bill asks me for the millionth time if I want a cigarette, and it's only after we've killed a Tank that I turn to him, wide-eyed and grinding my teeth, and accept it. He gives me a look while he's lighting it for me: he's old enough to be my father, and he knows it, but he treats me more like one of his war buddies than anything else. He nods toward my shoulder.

"You're all tore up," he mutters. I glance at it. Oh, shit, he's right. Blood is trailing down my arm, adding color to fading tattoos, but I can't even feel it, really. My heart is pounding in my chest as he moves me back against the wall and sits me down, calling for Zoey and Louis. "Either one of you have a health pack?!" he shouts in his rough, wet voice. God, I haven't smoked in years. It feels almost good to do it now, as the pain is slowly pooling in my shoulder. It's a nice, hot distraction.

Zoey kneels by me with her health kit out, popping it open and rummaging through it for antiseptic and bandages. She looks so fucking serious, doing this, and in a way it kind of pisses me off: she patches Louis up all the time, and they crack jokes together and mess around. It's never quiet time just because Lou needs a band-aid. I don't get why it has to be different, for me, and that fucking frustrates me. I'm glaring at her when she looks up at me, and I guess I don't realize that I am, because she hesitates, staring at me.

"…What?!" she asks indignantly, and it's only then that I realize that I'm scowling at her. I force a laugh.

"Why so grim, Zoe?" I ask. She stares at me for another few seconds before she sneers and shoves the health kit toward me, popping up like a bird taking flight and stomping back off to go talk to Louis like she was before. Her little blood-soaked hands are clenched into fists at her sides, and I wonder why in all hell she's pissed at me, when all I did was ask her to be a little more lighthearted about all this bullshit.

This cigarette is good.

***

I think Louis and I are the only two not living in some kind of fucked up dream world. Bill's an ex-green beret, and I know damn well what that means. Nam was awful, I'm sure of it, and this crazy shit can only be sending Bill back in time. I can tell it is, sometimes: the way he talks to us, and the way he acts is so coordinated, he's gotta be thinking he's back on the front lines. Not that that's exactly a problem—he's a damn good soldier—but it's unsettling, to say the least.

And Zoey…well, she said herself that she spent way too much of her teenage life watching horror movies about the apocalypse. Kind of fucked that she's living through it, now. Sometimes—just sometimes—I catch myself worrying about her, like maybe she's like Bill a little bit, where she'll get confused and think this is one of her stupid movies, just like he thinks he's still plowing through the mucky swamps of southeast Asia. In movies, there's always one chick that makes it out alive. And I worry that she figures that since she's the only chick, she's guaranteed to live. I've put myself in the line of attack more often than once 'cause I was afraid she was gonna get killed. I've got scarring wounds all over my chest and back from ten too many Witches and Hunters, and the whole left side of my face is bruised and swollen from a Tank fist.

We sit in the safe room, and I smoke and Bill smokes and Louis tells a story about the shitty job he used to have, and Zoey's kind of half-leaning against my sore arm, staring at Louis while he talks animatedly. I lift my arm up to put it around her when it aches too much to stay like that, and she just gets up and moves away, not saying anything. My ribs are sore when she pulls back from me, and I grimace. Louis offers me some pain pills.

***

When I was a kid, I never thought I'd grow up to be anything like I am now. To be honest, I can't really remember _what_ I thought I was gonna be when I grew up, but no way in Hell was it anything close to what I turned into. I remember being really happy, as a kid. I guess the older and more cynical you get, the more fucked in the head you become.

I remember being Zoey's age. I was big, even then. God, I was stupid, though. If she and I switched ages, I don't think I'd make it through this. I have to admire her, for that reason. Dumb as it is to admire a teenage girl. I think, in a way, she knows how tough she is, but at the same time, she's still got that big chunk of self-doubt that all kids have, and it's eating away at her, the more time we spend here, trying to get out. I guess I should try to be nicer to her…but it's that kind of softness that trips people up. I've seen men go from stone-cold to softer than microwaved Jell-O, and I don't want to be one of those jackasses.

It's always the fault of _women_, y'know.

Fuck.

***

It gets cold when the lights are out.

Bill and Zoey and Louis are finally getting some sleep, and it's my turn to keep watch, my shotgun in my lap, knees curled up, back against the wall, eyes trained on the door. I can't hear anything outside, but I'm straining just in case. If I strain much more, I'm gonna start hallucinating, I know, but it's driving me crazy not to hear anything but silence.

I run my fingertips over the barrel of the gun. The metal's cold to the touch, just like everything else in this room: I'm covered in cold sweat, making me feel even dirtier than I actually am underneath week-old clothes and old, bloodied bandages. I would kill for a shower. I _have_ killed. So where's my goddamn shower?

Zoey shifts in her corner, and it's almost a relief to hear movement. She gets up and walks over to me, no shame, no nothing, and she looks down at me in the darkness. I can't really see anything but her eyes. "…It's so fucking cold," she whispers, and I nod, leaning away and lifting my arm up. She sits beside me and presses against me, unafraid when it's so dark and quiet. Her hair smells like blood and bile, and I'm immune to it, by now. It feels good to put my arm around somebody, for once. She presses her face into my chest, giving about as much of a shit about the smell as I do. All four of us are fucking filthy.

"How much longer, do you think?" she asks me softly, after a few minutes of ongoing quiet. I shrug.

"I don't know. Day or two. Maybe. Hopefully."

She hums. I feel her throat vibrate against me, and because she lets me, I push her hair behind her ear. It's crusty from dried sludge, and I feel my fingertips touch the side of her face, and all the blood and shit that's caked on there. She's a pretty girl, even when she looks like this. I feel the urge to tell her that, then decide against it. Something about that feels way too sentimental…it's a sign of that softness that I refuse to succumb to. Even in times like this, when I know we both get the feeling that what's said here stays here in this moment, saying things just to be nice is parallel to showing weakness.

And I, Francis, am too goddamn mighty for that.


	2. Mercy Killing

**Mercy Killing**

Eating is rare, now, and like sleeping, it's a thing to be savored.

In this disaster area, happening across a box of cereal or a can of soup or—my personal favorite—a can of beer is like finding a golden ticket into the chocolate factory. The four of us agreed from the start, when Bill first found a stray can of beans, that it was Finders Keepers, unless the Finder decided otherwise. So far, it's been working out okay.

Until now.

Zoey pulls back from the fridge with five glorious Bud Lights still stuck in their plastic six-pack rings, one eyebrow cocked deviously and a broad smirk on her face. She blinks slowly, and her eyes meet mine. She knows I see it. She wants me to, that cold bitch. God, she knows I'd do anything but kill her to get that beer. Usually I hate Bud Light, but in times of hardship, a man has to make some sacrifices, doesn't he? She moves her hand a little, and the cans sway. Oh, fuck, how I want them. I lick my lips, and they feel hard and dry and uncomfortable. Even _warm_ beer sounds delicious.

Zoey beams at me. By now, Louis and Bill have noticed what's going on, and they're watching us from a safe distance, a little curious. "Oh, what, Fran, you want this?"

"Goddamnit Zoey, don't call me that!"

She smiles, teasing me. Oh, fuck her, fuck her. My grip on my gun tightens. Christ, if I weren't such a gentleman…Zoey pulls one beer out of the plastic, looking up at me with big, innocent eyes that I don't dare to trust. "…You can have some, Fran, if you promise me you'll give me the next thing you find that I really want." There's always a catch, with her. Sly little bitch. My stomach growls. She knows just as well as I do that we both love way too much of the same shit, so that means, if I find Twinkies or Cheerios or Chef Boyardee, she's gonna be all over that shit like white on rice. And my ass is gonna starve. Over some Bud Light. Is it worth it?

I grit my teeth. "God, Zoe, I don't fucking know…"

"Ten seconds, Francis!"

My eyes bug. There's no guarantee that we're gonna find any of that other shit, is there? She shakes the beer, and I reach for it out of instinct. Fuck me. It's too hard to resist. Zoey laughs. "Seven…six…five…"

"Alright, alright, give it to me!" I moan, and she passes me the one beer that she took out of the plastic. I stare at it, confused, and she hooks the plastic to her belt loops. She looks so goddamn proud of herself, cheating me out of my beer. My eyes shift up to her smug face. "…What the hell is this?!"

"I said you could have _some_, Francis," she says innocently. I can hear Louis and Bill laughing quietly, Bill coughing into his arm and red-faced, Louis grinning and shaking his head. I was just royally fucked, wasn't I?

My face goes magenta with fury. "Oh, fuck no, Zoey, I'm not gonna—!"

"Too bad I got your word, and these guys to witness," she says with false sympathy, winking at me and sticking out her tongue. Christ, I want to punch her. But I don't. I'd never punch a woman. And she is one, no matter how hard she acts. As I'm standing there, shaking, my one Bud prize in my hand, she turns around and yanks open a cabinet, standing purposefully out of my way so that I can see what else she knew was there.

Stacks and stacks of Chef ravioli.

There aren't enough expletives in the world.

***

I know that Louis and Zoey are concerned about the "humanity" or whatever of these people. I know they whisper about it sometimes, and think about it more than that. Neither of them had ever even really been in a fight, before the outbreak, I'm sure. Louis just doesn't seem like the kind of guy to pick fights with anybody…or the kind of guy who gets fights picked with. God's sake, the man couldn't even get up the courage to quit his shitty job. And Zoey…well, she's…yeah.

I don't know.

Me, I don't give a shit about any of these suckers. There's no hope for them, as far as I can tell. I mean…would they even _want_ to be changed back, if they could be? Would they want to be injected with some antidote and cool down, and wake up and be told that just a couple days ago, they were tearing people limb from limb and eating human entrails and shitting themselves and vomiting blood and destroying everything in sight? I sure as hell wouldn't want that. If I were one of them, I'd want to be shot dead rather than waking up human again, fucked up and scared out of my mind.

I mean, Christ.

Especially sons of bitches like Tanks and Smokers. Is there even a way to change back from that? Once you become…I don't know…a fucking _monster?_

I see it as mercy killing, what I'm doing. Curb stomping sons of bitches and hacking off heads. I'm doing it all out of the kindness of my heart. Don't even have to think twice about it, anymore.

***

Bill tells me he was engaged, once. A long time ago. Before Vietnam. He says he came back a changed man, and his girl saw that in him, and was scared of it. She left him 'cause she said he wasn't the Bill she loved. That the Bill she loved had died in Nam.

He smokes a cigar while he's leaning out a broken, bloody window and he nods to himself, agreeing with her. God, usually I hate old crazy motherfuckers, but Bill's one hell of a guy. I've got the second of the three cigars he found jammed between my teeth, warm smoke filling my mouth and nostrils. Mmmh. Bill looks over at me curiously, and the first wind we've had in days blows through the window, cold and damp with the distant smell of rain. It feels good, but it makes me ache inside. I wish it would pour.

"How about you, Francis?" he asks me. "You ever have a lady?"

"Me?" I snort. "Dozens. _Hundreds._"

"No no no, you know what I mean." He scratches his beard. There's bits of skin stuck in it that don't belong to him, and he picks them out like they're chunks of food, tossing them out the window. I know exactly what he means. It's a matter of wanting to talk about it.

"Yeah," I mutter. I suck on the cigar. It tastes old, like somebody was saving it for something. Too late, now. "I know."

Bill waits. "…So?"

"Nah," I say. "Not really."

"Nobody special in your life?"

"Goddamnit, old man, are you serious?" I ask, glaring over at him. "Jee-_zus!_ I said no!" Christ, _special_ is such a stupid fucking word.

Bill shuts his mouth, but I think he's doubting me. No, I _know _he is. On the old, tattered sofa behind us, Zoey shifts a little in her sleep, and a little while after that, Louis comes back from taking a piss.

***

I about shit myself when I hear her scream, and then the shotgun fires off three loud rounds before clattering to the floor. By the time I've turned around and am dashing toward her, yelling and shooting, the Witch is on top of Zoey, slashing away at her, and she's shrieking and crying and shooting the bitch in the face and chest with her pistol, but those goddamn .45-caliber bullets don't do shit to her, even though you'd think they would. I drill the bitch in the head with bullets until she slumps over, collapsing on top of Zoey, and Zoey screams and sobs and shivers when I help her up, kicking the Witch's corpse off of her.

Zoey scares me half to death when she latches onto me for a minute, pressing close to me and letting out tiny little sobs into my chest. I'm almost embarrassed for her. She knows I don't want to see her like this, and she's usually pretty good about keeping it to herself (or else crying to Louis, who gives a damn and is better with her than I am, anyway), but I guess it was just too much for her. She didn't mean to startle the Witch, anyway.

She's crying into me. I pat her head awkwardly. "M-my fucking light wouldn't sh-shut off," she mutters, and I just sort of stand there, letting her do her thing. Her arms are wrapped all the way around my waist. She feels tiny, and it makes me feel kind of sick. Her face and neck are bleeding.

"You got a med kit for those scrapes, kid?" I ask her quietly, growling the words more than anything. She just shudders. I guess that means no. When she finally lets go of me, uncomfortable as all hell, I tear off a bloody piece of my shirt and tell her to press it to the cuts to stop the bleeding. It'll do for now.

***

I guess I'd be into Zoey, if she were a little older. If she had a little more HLT to her—that's Hips-Lips-Tits, for those who don't know it—and if she…I dunno…had a shower. And would shut the fuck up, sometimes. Or I guess if she'd talk about shit that I care about. Or wouldn't cry. Or…something.

Goddamn. You know, I do _like_ her, when I forget about how much she pisses me off. And I even care about her, a little. Sometimes.

She's still got two of those Buds tied to her belt loops. They're almost two days stuck to her hip, now. She gave two of them to Bill, and didn't even ask him for anything. She's got more Chef in her pockets, too. My stomach growls and reminds me of that, while she's sitting there in the corner of the safe room. She stares me in the eyes and lets Louis patch her up from the Witch attack, like she knows that I'm thinking about her.


End file.
